


The Way I Wanted

by OrionRedde, Shyrstyne



Series: Cometverse [15]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werecreatures, Nonbinary Character, post kh2 era, pre ddd, references to temporary canonical character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 13:35:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18316283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrionRedde/pseuds/OrionRedde, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shyrstyne/pseuds/Shyrstyne
Summary: You finally get to meet the friends Sora's talked so much about





	The Way I Wanted

**Author's Note:**

> 'wasn't kairi in hollow bastion and traverse town for a bit?' yess. we're running with the assumption that comet and kairi just kinda.. missed each other. like ships passing in the night.

“Comet!”

You look up from where you’re wiping down the countertop at the shout mingling with the chime of the door and see Sora, dragging two people along behind him. It’s been weeks since you saw him last, and your worry at the long absence finally dissipates at seeing him hale and whole. It’s quickly followed by a building excitement at just who you suspect the people with him are. He’s grinning so wide you can see every one of his teeth he’s so excited.

“Sora! How’s my favourite cub, who is this?” 

He tugs them forward, and his voice cracks as he speaks.

“I found them Comet, I found Riku and Kairi!”

“It’s nice to meet you.” Kairi steps forward, bowing politely. 

“Same.” Riku gives an awkward half-wave.

The rag has left your hand before you’ve really thought about what you’re doing, and it catches him around the face with a wet splat.

Sora and Kairi stare blankly for a second, and then slowly dissolve into giggles. The rag slips down from Riku’s eyes as he stands stock still, blinking bewilderedly.

“You ever pull that shit again I will hunt you down myself and save Sora the trouble.” You huff. 

“Which part?” He mutters quietly. He flushes as he grabs the rag with one hand and shoves his other hand in a pocket, avoiding eye contact. 

“The betraying your friends and making Sora mope for months on end because he’s scared for you part. Are there more?”

“Aw Comet, he’s better now, promise! Right, Riku?”

He looks at Sora’s sincerity with a soft smile of his own.

“Right. No more hiding.”

“No more fighting alone.” Kairi affirms and Sora nods enthusiastically.

“Well now that that’s out of the way,” You hold your hand out for your rag, which Riku hesitantly relinquishes to you, “Why don’t you all come in. I’ll close the bar for the day, make you all some dinner, and you can tell me some stories, yeah?”

Sora whoops excitedly, grabbing both his friends hands and hauling them upstairs. You stow the rag in a bucket and wander to the door, putting up your ‘closed for the day, family time’ sign. It’s the middle of the week so you don’t expect to lose much out of it, and then you wander up stairs yourself.

Sora has already managed to pull out the den blankets and bundled them up in a pile on the couch and is in the middle of pulling both Riku and Kairi in with him when you crest the stairs. You lean on the doorframe, holding in your own giggles as Sora manages to get Kairi tangled in a blanket while pulling ineffectually at Riku’s waist. He shifts into jaguar form and uses the extra power to pull Riku over, the sudden change in strength bowling him over entirely and leaving him flopped over both Sora and Kairi in an awkward tumble.

Sora laughs in delight, and your heart swells at how happy he his.

Riku looks up and notices you first, flushing starkly against his pale skin and silver hair as he attempts to sit up and regain his dignity, only the have several limbs catch in the wild tangle of rogue bedding which sends him face planting into the floor, and sending the nearby coffee table skidding sideways as he thrashes.

He manages to get himself free and stands stiffly in the middle of the room, obviously embarrassed.

“S-sorry.” He says, and Sora scoffs.

“Riku it’s fine, sit down. This is pack, you can relax.”

Riku tellingly does not relax, but he does sit down on the edge of the couch. You shake your head.

“Cub’s right, kid. I’ve given you my warning, but any friend of Sora’s is welcome here, I mean it. You don’t have to be so tense.”

Sora rolls in the blankets enthusiastically, clearly enjoying taking in the familiar scents and being around his packmates.

“Sora said you let him stay with you, sometimes.” Kairi says. You nod.

“Yeah, back in Traverse Town when he first left the islands, and then again when I moved here. It’s nice to have a place to come back to when you’re out on the run.”

“I stayed for full moons a lot. Wasn’t enough room on the gummi ship.” Sora murmurs into the fabric. He looks like he might almost fall asleep there, purring contentedly. Kairi doesn’t shift, but she does lay down a bit to rest her head next to Sora’s and rub her cheek into his fur affectionately.

Riku glances up sharply at you, and despite not being a were himself you know he knows what that means for exactly how much Sora trusts you. You shrug with a smile, which he seems to accept.

“So, come on. Stories, how did you find them Sora?”

“Well Saïx had kidnapped Kairi so I had to go find her, and I was  _ pretty  _ sure Riku was okay but I still hadn’t found him yet. We needed a way into the realm between, and Hayner, Pence, and Olette found a way into the data-Twilight Town, which had a portal in it” Sora rattles off. Your mind spins, you hadn’t even finished sitting down in a nearby lounge chair and you were already lost.

“A.. data? Twilight Town?”

“DiZ created it to hold Roxas while Naminé finished putting Sora back together.” Riku adds.

“Rox- wait. Back up. Start from the beginning.” You hold up a hand. They glance at each other, and do. Or at least they try. It’s a whole, sordid story, one with more turns than you can take in all in one sitting.

Your hands clench thinking about what had been done to Roxas, the sweet kid you remember giving ice cream to all the time. You’ve never met Naminé but you’re angry on her behalf too. Eventually the story catches back up to where they were before, entering the lanes between, which turned out to be full of Nobodies.

“And that’s when Axel shows up.”

Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile the somewhat tired, sassy man who used to get ice cream from you all the time with the hard, bitter and desperate person Sora relays to you. You’d only caught a glimpse of that bitterness, near the end when he had stopped in the bar. You knew Axel was in some kind of difficult position, caught between intense loyalties.. But you can’t help but feel like you’re still missing parts of the story. You’re not sure what though so you continue to listen attentively.

“The lanes between aren’t that big, really, they just look like they are, but every nobody we took down three more popped up. Eventually.. I guess Axel thought it was the only way.” Sora’s face grew somber. “He sacrificed himself to make sure we could get through.”

Your heart stutters.

“He’s dead?”

Sora nods, Riku narrows his eyes at your reaction. “When he faded away, he told me.. He told me he just wanted to see Roxas again. Everything he did, was just so he could get Roxas back.” Sora clutches a fist to his chest. Your own hurts.

You try to listen to the rest of the story, there are still more than a few twists and turns left, and make all the appropriate noises when it hits its climax, but inside you’re reeling. You would think, after the fall of your home, the decade in Traverse Town, you would be used to death. But you’re not, it hits you afresh every time. Maybe you’re just a soft heart. The story concludes and you try to pull yourself together enough to be genuinely happy for Sora finding his way home.

“It was a long way but we made it.” Kairi says. “Roxas and Naminé are a part of us now, but..”

“I wish there was a way to let them live, as their own people.” Sora nods.

“Yeah.” You whisper. “Me too.”

“Did you know them?” Riku suddenly asks. Kairi and Sora look up in confusion. Riku stares you down intently.

“Oh that’s right, you knew Roxas, didn’t you.” Sora says, like he’d forgotten. You give him a watery smile. “It’ll be okay, Comet. He’s safe with me until we can figure out a way to get him back, okay?”

“Thank you, Sora.” You say, and he leans out of the blanket nest to nuzzle you fiercely. The affection is enough to make you sniffle and you try your best to keep tears from dripping into his fur.

“And Axel. You knew him too, didn’t you?” Riku says, putting the pieces together far too easily for your taste. Sora pauses, as though realising what that means, and you pull him in a little closer.

“Yeah.”

“I’m.. I’m sorry.” Sora says. 

Kairi says nothing but rests a hand on Sora’s haunch. You don’t blame her silence, after what she’d been through, what Axel had done to her. Your grief isn’t logical though. You take a deep, shaky breath, and work through it. Perhaps you hadn’t ever really known him, but the fact that now you never will hurts more than you had honestly expected it to.

“I’m okay. Keep going.”

“There’s not much left to tell,” Kairi admits. “We got a letter from the King, and apparently there’s old keyblade masters that we could help, and something about a mark of mastery? But we don’t know the details yet. We’re just travelling right now while we wait on word from him, Sora’s showing all the friends he’s made over his journey.” You smile, sounds like Sora.

“Do you want  to stay here tonight, or do you have more stops you want to make?” You ask, releasing Sora as he moves back to sprawls across both Kairi and Riku’s laps.

“I wanna head back to the islands for a bit and see if my mom is ready to come see stuff with us.” Sora says. “But no rush yet.”

“We can stay at least one night.” Kairi adds. “I’d like to get to know you at least a little better.” She smiles at you, and Riku nods in agreement, you smile in return gratefully.

“That sounds wonderful. I’ll start dinner now, actually. Any preferences?”

There’s a chorus of suggestions and you set about making food. You putter about the kitchen, and eventually Sora and Kairi start a catnap pile in the den while Riku helps you cut vegetables for a stew. It’s quiet, and you can’t quite tell if it’s tense or not.

“How well did you know Roxas?” He asks eventually, and you hum thoughtfully.

“Not that well, I guess. I used to work in an ice cream place before I opened the bar. Him and Axel were in all the time. A treat for themselves for a job well done, Axel told me. We talked sometimes.” You answer evasively.

Riku makes a noise of acknowledgement but says nothing else.

“Roxas was just a kid, like anyone else really. I had a feeling whatever cult he’d gotten wrapped up in was bad news, but I didn’t know what kind, or how to get him out.” You sigh. “He didn’t deserve any of this.”   
  
Riku looks away, hiding beneath his bangs.

“I knew Axel was in the same boat, whatever it was.. But I had no idea it was that bad. That he’d end up…” You shake your head. “No, to answer your question. I never really got to know them the way I wanted to.”

He’s quiet, and then murmurs “I’m sorry.”

You sigh.

“You weren’t in any better of a situation, Riku. I won’t say I’m not angry at the situation for forcing you into that, or at every adult involved who failed to stop all this, but I can’t really be any more angry at you than I could be at Sora.”

He resumes cutting vegetables without saying anything. The silence resumes, no longer tense, but certainly somber.

“Do you think.. If I talked to Sora, Roxas would hear me?” You say as you stir the pot, turning down the heat a little. Riku glances back into the den, where Sora is yawning loudly, teeth and tongue flashing in the waning light.

“I don’t know.”

You hum. You don’t even know what you’d say really, but you hold onto the thought for later anyways. Hopefully it won’t be needed, and Sora will find a way to let Roxas live his own life, but if not…

Well it’s always good to be prepared.

**Author's Note:**

> anyone else mad at DiZ and almost every adult in the kh franchise for being such a massive failure? no? just me?
> 
> and no that doesn't include terra and aqua. they're like 20 and quite frankly being manipulated by Actual Adults Who Should Have Known Better


End file.
